Naotake Sato

Naotake Sato (30 October 1882-18 December 1971) was Foreign Minister of Japan from March to June 1937, succeeding Senjuro Hayashi and preceding Koki Hirota.

Biography
Naotake Sato was born in Japan on 30 October 1882, and he passed the foreign service exam in 1905 before working at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He was ambassador to Belgium and France during the Interwar period, and he was appointed Foreign Minister in 1937, serving for three months. From 1942 to 1945, he served as ambassador to the Soviet Union, and he failed to convince the Soviet Union to side with Japan during peace negotiations with the Western Allies. On 8 August 1945, he was invited to the Kremlin by Soviet premier Vyacheslav Molotov, who gave Sato a formal declaration of war by the USSR on Japan. In 1947, he was elected to the House of Councillors in the National Diet of Japan, and he served as its president from 1949 to 1953. He died in 1971 at the age of 89.